


Quicksilver

by Yeah_JSmith



Series: Ruff Stuff [6]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Guilt, Praise Kink, affirmations, corner time, mentions of illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14544909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_JSmith/pseuds/Yeah_JSmith
Summary: Cynicism was never the answer to his problems, merely a survival tactic to combat loneliness and fear and negativity in a world determined to screw him over. If only he couldstop.(Nick wants to be good. Judy wants him to understand that he already is.)





	Quicksilver

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to ever read this to have the full Ruff Stuff experience, and in fact, this probably should be skipped entirely. This entry is a self-indulgent craptacular, written solely for my own benefit. Proceed with caution. Or whatever.
> 
> [Ruff Stuff, the Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFsMzmYsLKfO4D5y1PUHlsn_epYk4ROpn)

Being a die-hard cynic had never been fun; it had just been necessary when there was nothing in his life to look forward to, and although it had taken years, Nick could feel comfortable identifying as a _recovering_ cynic. Life had meaning again. He had his health and his (legitimate) job and amazing friends, and of course, he had his life partner. Most of the time, even if Nick wasn’t happy, he was reasonably satisfied.

And then there were days like today, where everything was birdshit and it was all he could do to stay still on the couch with his face in his paws and elbows on his knees instead of running as far away from his problems as he could, where going back to his old life with no attachments – nothing to _lose –_ sounded pretty damn appealing.

(Except it didn’t really, not anymore, and that only made things worse.)

Judy wasn’t home, which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because after five years of being a couple, she could always tell when his mood was off. Bad, because he was alone with his thoughts. Whenever he’d done something particularly loathsome, Nick’s thoughts turned in an ugly, dark direction: the cynicism he’d been so proud to leave behind.

_Stupid._

Ruth Wilde was dying. She’d always seemed larger than life, indestructible, and even when they hadn’t been talking he’d been grateful to her for raising him, for teaching him to pick pockets and sweet-talk just about anybody, and this just seemed impossible. A vixen like her couldn’t be taken down by disease in her 50’s. Judy’s parents were far older, and they were still healthy and whole! The oldest vixen in the world had just turned 103! As much as she annoyed him, as much as she reminded him of the worst parts of his life, he wasn’t ready to lose her.

And yet, that was exactly what he’d done when he had picked a fight with her just _minutes_ after hearing the news. He had said the most _awful_ things to her, yelled at her, left in a furious huff and ignored the obvious sounds of her crying. Why had he done that? What kind of shit son did that kind of thing? Why couldn’t he go for more than five minutes without being total garbage?

Maybe he could get himself under control, make _sense_ of this before Judy got home so that she wouldn’t ask about what he knew he couldn’t say aloud…

...but no such luck, because why would there be?

The front door opened. Nick considered jumping up and maybe diving out the window, or just curling up and pretending sleep, but their new apartment was on the fifth floor and her ears would be able to pick up on whether or not he was really asleep. She’d probably allow him to keep pretending, feign ignorance, but she’d know he was avoiding her, and she would probably believe she’d done something wrong.

(Was it worth it?)

Before he could decide one way or another, her voice rang out, “Hey, Slick, get your butt in – oh, you’re already out here. Put out your paws, I brought you a present!”

He put a sly smile on his face and answered, “Oh? And what did you bring home to your favorite fox?”

Her smile dropped along with her ears when she came into view, kicking the door closed behind her. She gripped the box she was carrying a little tighter. “What’s with the voice?”

“What voice?” He raised an eyebrow. “You mean my smooth, sexy voice?”

“No, I mean your I’m-so-sneaky-keeping-this-secret voice.” She stepped forward. His body reacted, leaning away from her, before he could decide on his own body language. “What’s wrong, Nick?”

He scoffed. “Nothing, jeez.”

Unimpressed, and setting the box on the entry table, she asked, “Nothing as in you’re trying to surprise me, or nothing as in there’s _actually_ something wrong but you don’t want to talk about it?”

She’d given him an easy out. All he had to do was tell her he was setting up a surprise and she’d believe him. He liked giving her little surprise gifts, so it didn’t even need to be a lie. She would accept it, and it would become real. But even if Nick was already a toxic trash heap, he couldn’t mislead her like that, not when she trusted him so much. He’d just...have to figure out something else.

“Nothing as in nothing.”

 _Not_ his best attempt at reassurance. Judy wasn’t dumb enough to believe that. She came to sit next to him and reached out her paw, an invitation. He didn’t take it. He didn’t deserve to hold her paw. He felt hot and thick and like he needed to step out of his own skin. He couldn’t even look at her when she hummed and told him, “You aren’t very good at shutting me out anymore.”

Of course he wasn’t. He’d trusted her too much for too long. He was going to lose her, too – and her parents, and Ian and Finnick, and if he was _lucky_ they’d all get tired of him before they died, but _what if –_ and he wanted to say something to get her to look elsewhere, but he could only suck in tiny shallow breaths until his vision blurred. When he finally looked up, she seemed concerned. Well, that needed to stop. “Maybe I don’t need you sticking your twitchy little nose in my business.”

“Your business _is_ my business, insofar as your health is my business,” she remarked mildly, echoing one of his sentiments from years ago. Damn her memory. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I’m just giving you the option to talk if you need it.”

And damn her kindness, too. It wasn’t fair. Just by absolving him she’d made it harder to avoid her. She wasn’t asking for anything he wasn’t willing to give, and instead of making it _easier,_ now he felt...almost obligated to give her an explanation. But he _couldn’t._ When he opened his mouth, he physically could not force out the words. If he said it, then it would be true. If the words were real, then the illness and the fight and his abhorrent behavior would be real.

(This would hurt her, too. Judy loved Ruth, possibly more than he did.)

“I...want to say something, but I don’t think I can. Physically.”

She considered him for a moment. Reached out as if to pet him. Pulled away. “Do you need to go in the corner first?”

“No,” he said immediately, and then stopped. Of _course_ Judy would have divined that was _exactly_ what he needed, because she knew him better than anyone, but he couldn’t force his mouth to say that, either. “Maybe. I don’t know, aren’t you supposed to decide that?”

“Okay, _no.”_ She reached out to take his muzzle in both of her paws, forcing him to look at her. “You’re my partner. That means we’re on the same page. That means I don’t punish you unless I know that you actually deserve it.”

“Well maybe you should grow a backbone,” he told her spitefully, and immediately regretted it.

Judy let go of his muzzle and held her paws up by her shoulders, faux-uncaring. “I’m not stopping you from standing wherever you want.”

“It’s not the _same!”_ He hated the neediness in his voice, the vulnerability, but at least it got across to her that this wasn’t just one of his bouts of life-inspired irritability. “It’s – it’s not the same.”

Her voice was edged with compassion that made him uncomfortable when she asked, “What’s not the same?”

“If I make that choice,” he said awkwardly, trying to explain what had previously only been a loose concept, “then it’s not a punishment, it’s an action – something I’m doing, not something I’m being ordered to do, and I’m not going to do it if you don’t tell me to. I can’t explain it. It’s stupid. I know what I need but I can’t…”

“You can’t say it or bring yourself to do it,” she surmised, “because it feels better to punish yourself than to forgive yourself.”

He looked at his thighs. That sounded dumb. And correct. And it only made him feel worse, because was he really that stupid? “I wouldn’t put it like that exactly.”

Judy sighed softly and stretched her arm to scritch the space between his ears. He tried to hold still, to not lean into it, because after the things he’d said to the two mammals he loved most he didn’t think he deserved her affection. Finally, she said, “Nick...go put your nose in the corner.”

She sounded very small and very tired and he did what he was told, guilty about her tone but grateful for the order.

What he suspected Judy didn’t know was that he _hated_ being in the corner. There were times when it felt so bad that he could swear a permanently-disfiguring beating would be better than being in the corner. It was also, for that reason, the most effective punishment he could think of. Spankings could be fun and erotic. Essays didn’t do much but amuse them both. Confessions were hard, but at least he could look at her while he did them, an act of defiance against the instinct to run and hide. Restrictions rarely got through to him, because he _liked_ doing what he was told, and long-term orgasm denial wasn’t a big deal either, because he didn’t have a particularly overactive libido. But being in the corner meant baring his back to someone, a pure punishment with no alternate use. He couldn’t see her, so he couldn’t read her face or her body. Every sense and every thought was amplified, too. In his mind, her quiet breathing was accompanied by a look of disgust at his stupid outburst. Every sound of her movement seemed to put her an inch closer to the door, and maybe this time she’d walk out on him. He couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t. There was no reason to stay with such a fuckup. What if she was only with him because she’d made a promise and she hated breaking promises? That was probably it. Five years was too long for love to last when the lover in question was pure trash. They’d have to talk about that. She wasn’t _required_ to stay, even if she had promised she would. Her life would be better without his dead weight dragging her down. He didn’t want to lose her, either, but that was better than making her unhappy and holding her back for the rest of their lives.

His shoulders felt uncomfortable, his tail twitched, and he couldn’t keep his ears from going flat in shame. His upper body contracted as he subconsciously tried to shake the feeling of being watched from between his shoulders, but as usual, it didn’t work. Nick was at the mercy of his own brain...and if he wanted to get to a better place, he had to focus on calming himself down.

 _That_ was why, despite the awful feelings it evoked, corner time was actually his favorite punishment. When he wasn’t alone with his self-destructive tendencies, but he had nothing to do but _think,_ it was easier to examine his own thoughts, behaviors, and motivations. He knew he was shit, but he was being punished for it. That would bring some relief, even though this would probably be the last time he would have this.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He stared at a tiny speck on the wall, a flick of something – maybe paint, maybe water, maybe just natural living grit – that was, once spotted, impossible to look away from. He felt like that speck. Tiny. Weird. Wrongly placed. Unidentifiable. What had he ever done to deserve the live he had? To deserve the two-bedroom apartment and the successful occupation and the friends and the partner and everything he had always assumed he would never even _see_ up close? It was almost like he was living someone else’s life. He was allowed to have the good things that someone _else_ had worked for.

A mammal with Nick’s past, with Nick’s heart, _didn’t_ deserve this life…

...but he wasn’t who he’d tried to be. At his very worst, that had felt just as plastic as this new life did, and it had felt plastic much more often. There was a distinct sort of depersonalization that went paw in paw with the confidence business, loss of identity, or maybe just too much identity to process. Now, he was allowed to feel terrible and it wouldn’t mean the difference between groceries or going hungry. He was allowed to be happy and it wouldn’t mean the difference between business and ruining a job, or chasing away marks.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He stared at the speck and tried not to move. So he’d been a wretched son. That was something he had done many times before. He could tell Judy that because it wasn’t new. She would know how to react to it. Maybe she would think he needed to be punished further. That would be okay. He kind of deserved it.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

His tail stopped twitching. He could still feel Judy’s eyes on him, but instead of making him want to turn and run, it just reminded him that she was there. Maybe she wouldn’t be, after she heard the extent of what had happened, but at the moment, she was there. That was somewhat comforting, in its own way. He’d been wretched to her, too. Her patience wasn’t infinite, he knew that, but she had proven that it _was_ unusually deep, when it came to mammals she cared about.

Breathe.

Breathe.

“Okay,” she said. Her voice was still quiet, but that small quality was gone. “Come here. We’re going to talk.”

Nick turned and looked at her carefully. She was still seated on the couch (it had been stupid to think she would leave in the middle of something like this), and her mouth was closed under tight, worried eyes. He approached the couch and kneeled on the carpet, paws on his thighs, forcing himself to look at her even though he knew this next part would be painful. Maybe excruciating, even, if it went badly.

“Can you tell me now what’s going on with you?”

“I...picked a fight with my mom today,” he replied.

“That’s not so unusual, is it?”

He winced. It really wasn’t. They hadn’t gotten along very well since his father had died 23 years prior. Part of that was how similar they were to each other, and part of that was how prideful they both could be, and part of that was how much they both liked to argue. Picking a fight with her wouldn’t have even given him pause, were it not for the situation that he still had to explain. “No, but the circumstances have changed. She’s dying. Oh, God, she’s _dying.”_

There. He’d said it. Predictably, Judy’s eyes widened and her mouth twitched downward. “She...what? How? _Why?”_

“Tumors. All over her liver. Inoperable. She’s been completely asymptomatic and it was just a _freak coincidence_ that they even bothered to check – and when she told me I thought she was just messing with me – oh God – she’s going to die and what if the last thing I ever said to her is spiteful? She’ll die hating me...but...I won’t have to see it. She won’t really be dead. I won’t really lose her.”

“Oh, _Nick,”_ Judy said sorrowfully. She slid off the couch to put her arms around his shoulders, nuzzling his headfur and just _being there,_ and maybe he was shaking, but whatever.

“I don’t know why I keep doing this.” His voice was more hoarse than he was comfortable with. “I want to be good, Judy. I want to be stronger than I am. I want to be _good.”_

“You are. You’re so good. Only good mammals care about whether or not they are. You love your mom, and you’re afraid to lose her. That doesn’t make you bad. Messing up doesn’t make you bad. You can be good without being perfect. Nobody _is._ Perfect isn’t a real thing. You’re a good fox. You’re _my_ good fox. I know telling you that won’t change how you feel, but please just think about that. I fell in love with someone good-” She kissed the left side of his muzzle. “-and brave-” And the right. “-and trollish and irritable-” She kissed his nose. “-and loyal and sweet and scared-” She rubbed her chin along the bridge of his snout. “-and just absolutely wonderful. You amaze me all the time. You _are_ strong. Look at everything you’ve accomplished in the last few years. You...I can’t put into words how good you are. You blow me away with it.”

“A strong wind could blow you away,” he said gruffly, but he couldn’t help relaxing into her, putting his own arms around her, one paw on her lower back and one on her shoulder. “I know you want all of that to be true, but you have to see reality. I’m just trash.”

It felt good to say it. It would feel good to hear her agree, even if that would signal the end for them.

“You’re not _trash,”_ she said sharply. “You feel guilty because you internalize everything, and then your big beautiful brain blows everything so out of proportion that it sounds like one of those insurance commercials. You make connections that aren’t even real and you spin out. You think it’s easier to lose something on purpose, because then you can pretend you have control over it. You’ve been doing it since you were a kit. It’s easier to feel bad about your own actions than to feel bad about something _happening to you.”_

“I don’t...that’s not…”

And then, to his horror, he burst into tears.

It had been a long time since he’d cried. He’d had tears come out of his eyes during a few of their more physical sessions, and when he’d broken his ribs and forgotten to refill his pain medication, but that didn’t count as crying. Those tears had just been a physiological response to physical stimulus. Judy crying was a show of strength, daring to show emotion when everyone would judge her for it, but Nick crying was an act of weakness –

_hypocrite._

It wasn’t weakness. It was a response to minimizing his own pain for too long, relying on distractions, listening to Judy forgive him his transgressions _over and over_ but never truly internalizing it.

She sat against the couch and pulled him down with her, petting his neck and upper back with gentle paws, making small soothing noises that should have been embarrassing but were just nice to hear. Nick let go of her and curled up with his head in her lap, allowing the tears and stupid sobbing to run their course while she continued petting him, running her fingers through the fur on his neck instead of his shoulder. Eventually, he was left without any more tears, just the aftershocks of the unexpected crying jag giving him trouble. The air felt quiet, the world on mute and the carpet soft beneath him.

“You’re my good boy,” Judy murmured for the _n_ th time. “I’ll say it every day if that’s what you need.”

He opened his eyes. As she had slouched down to give his head a better space by her hips, her knees were blocking his view of their living room, the stretchy gray fabric of her uniform concealing the soft fur he wanted to feel against his cheek. He blew out a breath and said, “I love you, Judy.”

 _And I wish I didn’t,_ he didn’t say.

 _And I wish you didn’t love me,_ he didn’t say.

Haltingly, she asked, “I’m not helping you at all, am I? We’ve been doing this for almost five years, and you still seem so miserable sometimes – am I hurting you instead of helping?”

“No,” he replied, panicked and something that was almost desperate. “No, my life improved 150% because of you, and you’re doing everything right – _everything,_ I swear – and I don’t know how you can see me and still love me but if you say you do I believe you, just don’t think – _never_ think – I...if you want to leave, then…”

“Nick! Nick, I’m _not_ going to leave you.” She leaned over to rest her cheek on his. He felt his heart race, but said nothing. “This is what I mean, though. I don’t want to give you punishments or do scenes with you if it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. The point is to help you. And have fun sometimes, but I’m _not_ okay with doing something unhealthy just because it can be fun for us. So I need you to be honest, okay? Does it _actually_ help you when I punish you?”

He concentrated on his breathing for a few minutes, getting his thoughts in order. This was, he knew, a turning point. Their course of action depended on his answer. His _honesty._ But no pressure or anything. “It helps.”

“Nick.”

“I’m not lying, Carrots.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

He breathed in, breathed out. “It helps me focus. I feel better when you punish me. Before I met you, I didn’t think it was _possible_ to feel as good as I have felt these past few years. Our thing has taught me how to process and go beyond “it’s all my fault.” But I still have a lot of work to do. It’s hard to unlearn things that _defined_ me for over a decade. What you said before? About it being easier to blame myself and not forgive myself because then I have control over it? You were right, and when you punish me you take that control from me. You forgive me even when you don’t think I need to be forgiven. And I follow you, because I always will. I never believed anyone would ever bother to be careful with me like you are. It _helps._ It would just help more if I allowed myself to accept it all the time, instead of just sometimes.”

“I worry about you,” she admitted quietly. He could feel her breath on his neck and closed his eyes again. “I worry that I’m not doing enough to prove that I love you. I worry that one day you’re going to leave, not because you’ve fallen out of love but out of misplaced guilt because you think it’s something you should do for me. I _know_ you, and usually I think you know me, but you’re so pessimistic sometimes...I trust that you know your own mind, but please don’t ever be afraid to tell me if your mind changes.”

She wasn’t wrong to worry about any of that. In his darkest times, he _had_ considered leaving, though not seriously, because he was too selfish to leave unless she told him to.

No.

_No._

He would not leave her like that because he respected her and trusted her to know her own mind, just as she had said about him. He wasn’t going to let fear of losing Ruth and shame at bad behavior cheapen what he had built with Judy. He didn’t have to make a formula out of his guilt, _if self-loathing is greater than love for her then I don’t deserve her,_ because that ignored her autonomy. She was allowed to love him whether or not he loved himself. That she _did_ was a goddamn miracle, and not one that he wanted to take for granted.

“I’m not going to ever be perfect,” he said, “and I know I have a lot of work to do. I know that doesn’t bother you, even if sometimes my brain tries to convince me it does. I don’t feel like I have the right to ask you to be patient with me, but that’s probably all the shit talking.”

“You’ve been patient with me.” She grinned into his fur and sat up again to scritch his ears. “You helped put me through the academy. You let me rant to you about my weird cases. You rub my feet when they hurt so bad I think they’re going to fall off, and you put up with my mom asking every five seconds when we’re going to start adopting kits, and you watch horror movies with me. You keep an eye on my health because I forget to, and you wore that _hideous_ dress so that I didn’t feel so singularly ugly at Bethany’s wedding, and you didn’t leave me when I was hurting myself even though it hurt you, and honestly Nick you’re kind of a saint. I’m a lot, and you don’t just put up with the crazy, you embrace it. Even if it were a matter of – like Mr. Big says – equivalent exchange, you absolutely have the right to ask for anything you want. Patience included.”

He wanted to assure her that she wasn’t a lot, that there was no crazy to be embraced, but hadn’t that been _her_ point? Instead, he breathed in and out while she ran her fingers through his fur. When the quiet wasn’t painful anymore, he told her, “I don’t know how to _not_ spin out like this.”

“I know. It’s part of who you are,” she answered, “and it hurts you, but it doesn’t keep you from being good.”

“Tell me what to do.”

She must have known how painful it was to make that request, because she didn’t ask him to explain it, and she didn’t laugh or anything. Instead, she slipped her paw under his collar and rested her fingers on his pulse point as she said, “We’re going to see Ruth tonight, or tomorrow if she’s indisposed. You’re going to apologize for whatever thing you said that you think is so terrible, and then we’re going to bring her home. If she’s dying, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, she deserves to be here with mammals who love her.”

“She’s not going to forgive me.”

“She might not,” Judy replied, in a tone that said very clearly that she was just humoring him, “but what’s worse, not being forgiven or never trying to make it up to her?”

Honestly, he didn’t know. Both sounded bad. But there were some mammals who never got the chance to ask for forgiveness. Some mammals just found out, after the fact, that their loved ones were dead. They had to live out the rest of their lives without closure one way or the other. Ruth knew that on a very personal level; he couldn’t imagine that she wanted the same thing for him, no matter how cranky she got with him.

Judy knew that, didn’t she? And she’d told him what to do. She hadn’t asked. She didn’t often order him around, but this was something he needed. It was easier to do something hard when it was an order, because it was – in a way – something he could do to please her. Somehow, the fact that she only ever ordered him to do things that helped him be the mammal he wanted to be didn’t make a difference. Her love for him was obvious, and he felt silly for thinking it might change without him noticing.

“Thank you,” he said, and he wasn’t sure he could verbalize what he was thankful for, but she didn’t ask, and he loved her for it.


End file.
